ZTEWelink announced that its 4G LTE Category 4 module, the ME3630, has successfully obtained Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Marking, providing an official entrance for the ME3630 into North America.

The ME3630 is available today for sampling with a target of full commercial availability by December 2016.

The ME3630 operates on FDD LTE penta-band (bands 2, 4, 5, 13, 17) and UMTS dual-band (bands 2, 5), allowing it to operate nationwide within the United States on 4G LTE and 3G networks, as well as in regions such as Canada and Latin America.

The ME3630 is in a 30*30mm LCC form factor and is the newest member of ZTEWelink’s vLink module family. It is pin-to-pin compatible with numerous LTE/WCDMA/EV-DO modules, which enable system integrators the flexibility of choice to architect derivative designs. Based on the Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ X5 LTE modem, the maximum downlink speed the ME3630 can reach is up to 150Mbps. The Snapdragon X5 LTE modem is a product of Qualcomm Technologies, a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated. In addition to the LCC form factor, the ME3630 is also available in the standard Mini PCI Express form factor, ideal for 3G customers looking to transition to 4G.

The ME3630 comes in several variants, which include carrier specific and generic unlocked configurations. The hardware supports several band configurations to support the three primary regions targeted for this product:

Chinese version (FDD-LTE/TDD-LTE/UMTS/ TD-SCDMA/EV-DO/CDMA 1X/GPRS)

European version (FDD-LTE/UMTS/GPRS)

US version (FDD-LTE/UMTS)

With some embedded features, such as GNSS, VoLTE, FoTA, TCP/UDP, the ME3630 enables customers to quickly deploy the LTE Category 4 solution for the global market and provide reliable Internet-of-Things (IoT) communications for security and monitor, industrial router and gateway, DTU, CPE, and Telematics etc.

“This powerful new product can be applied in various IoT applications, which require high throughput,” said Wang Peng, VP of ZTEWelink.

“ZTEWelink has made a lot of original hardware and software designs, including redundant design, data recovery mechanism, EMC / ESD optimization etc., which makes the ME3630 meet industrial grade quality perfectly. It will provide reliable and stable communication channel, making sure the device is ‘always online’.”